How do birds keep their eggs warm?

The Year 2 children have been learning about materials and this week we delved deeper into the materials used by birds when making their nests. The children readily gave their suggestions of sticks, twigs and grass/hay. The children were then prompted to think of why the birds use these materials they had suggested and the children thought about their eggs. They need to keep their eggs warm this then led to an investigation on what materials would be useful for keeping things warm for longer periods. The children were introduced to the term insulators; these are materials that do not allow heat to pass through them easily.

The children working with different materials were able to think about which materials would make a good insulator, they chose paper, plastic and ceramic to investigate. They planned their enquiry and were able to use fair testing to find out what would change and remain the same in their investigation. They then used thermometers to check the temperature of the water in the different cups at intervals of two minutes, they recorded each reading from each cup and as they moved along they realized that from the three materials selected ceramic is a better insulator than plastic or paper as the temperature was much higher than the paper cup and plastic cup. The children realized that birds and other animals also need to think about which materials are better at retaining heat than others.